Chapter 175

Chapter 175: City Of Graves

Tree branch—Soul Preservation—Revival!

Other than those on Bai Yi’s team, there were three other people who survived: Betsy, Bellamy, and a guy called Romain Cristot. The three of them didn’t know about the past experiences of Bai Yi’s team and didn’t understand what they were talking about. Meanwhile, the people from Bai Yi’s team immediately started to search in a frenzy, and finally found a few of the Soul Release Tree’s branches.

When they had left Ghost City Wellington way back then, everyone had brought a section of a tree branch out with them; it was simply that none of them had given it much thought or attached much importance to it. All of them had kept these things with them since the branches could keep vengeful spirits away, after all; it was just that they hadn’t turned them into necklaces like Woolf. After a messy period of searching, they even found pieces of it on Alodia and Pupu. Seeing Pupu shake one of his ears, everyone suddenly started to think about how Pupu managed to communicate with them, letting them hang the tree branch on his big ears.

Bai Yi and the rest couldn’t help but feel admiration for Pupu’s intelligence.

“Uncle Woolf, can you pass the necklace to me first?” Momo said to Woolf.

Woolf nodded. “En.”

Momo received the crudely made necklace into her hands and found it contained a piece of a branch about seven to eight centimeters long. Momo looked at it seriously, then pressed her forehead against the tree branch and closed her eyes. Although Bai Yi had said that this branch could possibly be able to preserve and contain souls, nobody could be sure of the specifics of such a thing. The only thing they could rely on now was Momo, who could see souls.

Actually, Bai Yi got his inspiration from all the books he’d read in China. In those mythological or fantasy stories, didn’t ghosts commonly possess or reside in certain objects?

“En, en, OK.” Momo’s face was very tense at the start, but after a while she began to smile and mutter to herself. Of course, everyone knew that she was definitely not talking to herself, but communicating with Heloise’s soul in the tree branch.

“Daddy, Aunt Heloise says that it feels very good inside, and she doesn’t have the feeling that she’s dissipating either. It’s just that it’s very empty in there, just like a big room, so it’s quite boring,” Momo said.

“Is it like that? Then let’s try and see if this branch could contain even more souls. Vala’s, Raymond’s… ask them if they want to be alone in another branch or together with other people,” Bai Yi said.

Momo nodded. “En.”

After that, Momo quietly opened her eyes and surveyed the surroundings, finding the rest of their companion’s souls beside their corpses. The people in Bai Yi’s team knew that Momo could see souls, but the others were all incredibly shocked, whether it was Betsy and the other survivors or the dead souls themselves.

After Momo communicated with all the souls and clarified things with Aunt Heloise, everyone learned that the space within the branch on Woolf’s necklace wasn’t too big: it was roughly about 100 square meters in size.

There were more than 40 people who had died in this area; it wasn’t just people from Bai Yi’s side, but the men that Yu Han had brought as well. In the end, they decided to store the souls of the people from their side in Woolf’s Soul Release Tree branch. As for the rest of the souls, Momo made the decision to store them inside Alodia’s branch. Bai Yi didn’t question Momo’s decision and only watched quietly.

Apparently, Momo’s experiences made her completely different from a normal little girl; she now had her own thoughts and had also become a lot more mature.

Notably, Momo had used her sword when storing the souls as well. In the eyes of normal people, she only lightly stabbed her sword into the air here and there. However, from her frosty little face and the small points of light spreading out from the tip of the blade, everyone knew when she had completely entrapped a soul. Everyone more or less understood Momo’s abilities now. All of them discovered that when it came to the independence and decisiveness of this little girl, even most adults couldn’t compare to her.

…

“Then, what are your plans?” Bai Yi asked Betsy and the two others.

They had already stored everyone’s souls. Although they didn’t know if it was really possible to revive them, they at least had a hope now. The world was becoming more and more mysterious, so there really might be a means for Revival in the future. Because of this, their sorrow from seeing their companions fall eased a little bit.

“I don’t know.” The three of them shook their heads. They had all been living well in New Christchurch. Who would have expected that something like this would happen?

Bai Yi looked at the three of them. He didn’t need to think much about Betsy and Bellamy; after more than a week of interaction he was more or less familiar with them and felt that he could trust them. However, he was completely unfamiliar with this Romain Cristot. They had already had plans to leave New Christchurch for another location to go through the Hypersomnia Stage, and they would definitely follow-through with those plans now. It seemed a bit inexcusable if he did not bring them along; after all, New Christchurch was already ruined and they had just fought shoulder-to-shoulder. However, they were strangers, even if he decided to bring them along.

“Do you guys want to…” In the end, Bai Yi still intended to extend his invitation.

Even if he was wary, he couldn’t pay no heed to comrades-in-arms that had just fought together with them. Perhaps this was a part of Bai Yi’s nature.

“Forget about it, I won’t go.” Romain suddenly shook his head and declined before Bai Yi could say anything.

Bai Yi looked at the back of Romain, who turned around and slowly walked into the distance, and closed his eyes. This Romain had very good strength, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to survive in the previous battle. Moreover, he seemed to have his own story to him as well; he took the initiative to leave after seeing Bai Yi’s slight hesitation just now. However, with the state that Romain was in at the moment, he would definitely die if he met with some evolved lifeform on his way.

“Wait!” Bai Yi stopped Romain.

“I was indeed hesitating over whether to trust you just now, but I still chose to trust you in the end. Come along with me, you won’t have any spare energy to battle again if you really meet with some evolved lifeform in the state that you are in,” Bai Yi said.

“Is this Team Leader Bai Yi’s true feeling?”

“It is!” Bai Yi nodded seriously.

“Then I’ll be troubling you!” Romain looked into Bai Yi’s eyes seriously and nodded back in the end. Apparently, Romain did not want to go out and seek death by himself either. Just as Bai Yi said, they were all severely injured now. If they really met with danger again, they had practically no ability to protect themselves.

Betsy and Bellamy naturally did not have many concerns and left with Bai Yi’s team.

When they found out from Bai Yi that his team was about to enter the Hypersomnia Stage and had made preparations long ago, the three of them finally understood why Bai Yi had been hesitating. If it was under normal circumstances, then Bai Yi would have definitely invited them to his team straightaway; after all, there weren’t still too many people left on his team. However, if they were going into the Hypersomnia Phase, they would definitely be wary of strangers.

However, precisely because of this, a trace of gratitude mysteriously grew in their hearts toward Bai Yi. Putting themselves in his shoes, if it were them, would they be able to trust an unfamiliar person?

“Don’t look at me like that, we’re comrades-in-arms, after all. If I abandon you guys in the blink of an eye, then this world would be too hopelessly cold and apathetic.” Bai Yi waved his hand. Since he had already made the decision, he wasn’t someone who would continue worrying about the pros and cons.

Romain looked at Bai Yi, those words still reverberating in his ears… was there still hope for this world?

All of them supported each other or carried other people in simple stretchers, and slowly left for the place that Bai Yi had prepared long ago. This was really a team made out of injured combatants now; if the majority of evolved lifeforms hadn’t already gathered at New Christchurch, then they probably wouldn’t be able to walk far either.

Before leaving, all of them looked in the direction of New Christchurch. The place they were at wasn’t too high up, so they couldn’t see the appearance of the city. However, looking at the drizzling rain and the dark skies in the distance, they still felt a mysterious pain in their hearts.

Hope! The hope of evolved humans had been destroyed just like that!

After this incident, even if the evolved humans had the heart to do so, they probably wouldn’t be able to construct a new city again. At this time, all of them couldn’t help but recall Yu Han’s words to Bai Yi: that this city was the burial gift he had prepared for him.

City of Graves!

…

At this time, a countless amount of slaughter, struggle, and desperate straits sketched a cruel picture in New Christchurch. Even the appearance of the two hidden LV2 experts in the city couldn’t truly stop this from happening. An individual’s power was limited, after all; this human and bat could at most stop only a portion of the massacre.

“Let’s go, Augustine!” The bat actually spoke in human language.

In the eyes of other people, there was nothing strange about a bat speaking in human language—he was probably a human who fused with bat genes, and ended up looking like a bat. However, only Augustine knew that this bat was truly actually a bat. Even so, Augustine and the bat had spent such a long time together that he naturally wouldn’t be surprised by something like this now.

Augustine looked at the city that had fallen to a massacre in the distance, and a hint of sadness flashed across his eyes. Where could he go now?

Ever since escaping from their research facility, they had never faced any danger due to their strength. However, New Zealand now wasn’t too different from a primordial jungle. Even if he had the strength of a LV2, Augustine didn’t dare to enter the human world. As somebody who was human, he knew just how much power the humans had on their side. When the city in which he had seen a trace of hope for a secure future could be destroyed, where could evolved humans head to?

…

When Melvin saw the group being very gloomy on the road, he couldn’t help but say, “Don’t be so dispirited, evolved humans still have hope! On the northern island of New Zealand, isn’t there still Hamilton?”

“En, that’s right.” Everyone nodded, but…!